time flies huh? it's already december, and i'm into my third month of flying. of course, exams are just next week so i'd better buck up.

just woke up not too long ago and was, for the rare ocassion, grateful to be in my own bed. everything felt so familiar and wonderful. i mean...it's fun to be in another country, but you'll always be a stranger. singapore's home. sure, familiarity breeds contempt and the grass is always greener on the other side. but the way i see it, singaporean's are awfully proud to be part of the small island they live on. just look at the way they talk to people about their country. and of course, people usually ooh and ahh about how developed this supposedly categorized "third world" has become. i don't even know where they get the friggin' term "third world" from. it's ridiculous. sure...some countries are under-developed and all, but in comparison to which ones? the ones who've claimed global domination economically? or the ones who consider themselves martyrs for pretending to be concerned about such "third world" nations, albeit them never actually moving in to help?

global news has been truly disappointing. this i learnt from watching too much CNN in my hotel rooms. riots, demonstrations, pay-rise protests...doesn't seem like the world's such a peaceful place to live in now huh? what crap about world peace. it's such a dumb-ass term used to describe the pseudo-reality each of us lives in. of course, not everyone's like me in getting so affected by all the shit going on around the world.

it was so great to have been able to catch up with liesbet last week. i almost forgot what it was like to have real friends. i could hear the excitement in her voice when i called her in the morning last wednesday...she just couldn't stop giggling! we spent a huge part of the night just reminiscing our times at camp and going through old photo albums. the next day was cool because she took the day off from work to bring me around antwerp, about a half hour away from sinaai. it's a beautiful place...but i couldn't really grasp the essence of the area cuz it was so bloody cold! it's also been a long time since i just hung out with a girl friend, so that was really nice. we were just walking down the streets of designer boutiques and such, walking into a couple cuz she was so taken in by some of the hats. it was also heartwarming to visit her family and jo's family...the highlight being each of their families gave me a present. liesbet's father gave me one of his specially-crafted paintings - a picture of sinaai's town hall. jo's father, being the sculptor, gave me a plaster-made frog on a stone. i was so overwhelmed by all the warmth and the friendship that i had tears in my eyes on the way back to brussels. i was so gonna miss my friend.

anyways, i also found out that smiling and listening can take you a long way.